Jennifer Molina

Jennifer Johnson Molina is a native New Orleanian and the local contact for Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC), “the oldest and largest organization working to ordain women as deacons, priests, and bishops into an inclusive and accountable Roman Catholic Church.” Since 2012, Molina and the New Orleans WOC chapter have demonstrated in front of St. Louis Cathedral for the annual archdiocesan ordination of men, the 2013 Papal Conclave, and the opening mass of the 2014 USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) conference in New Orleans. The chapter has organized showings of Pink Smoke over the Vatican, a documentary about Catholic women priests (who are excommunicated from the institutional church), and Created Equal, a fictional account of a woman who sues the Archdiocese of New Orleans for gender discrimination because she can’t be ordained. They have hosted home masses celebrated by women priests, a delegation to a woman priest’s ordination in Atlanta, and an ecumenical Equal in Faith gathering with other denominations who struggle with gender inequity. In 2019, the chapter co-sponsored the New Orleans stop on the Catholic Tipping Point Tour, which brought Marie Collins, a survivor of childhood clerical sexual abuse and an international advocate for survivors, to five American cities.

In January and February, the chapter raised $4900 to erect three “Ordain Women” billboards along I-10. The work of the chapter has been featured by local news sources such as WDSU, FOX81, WRNO, nola.com and the Loyola Maroon and was recently featured in the National Catholic Reporter.

Molina’s work with WOC is as a volunteer. Her day job is as a Spanish teacher at Warren Easton Charter High School. She has taught English and Spanish in the New Orleans public schools since 1998.